The Springfield Job 101: Act 1 Neighbor Actions

Let the heisting begin! The latest event in Springfield, The Springfield Job, is all about pulling off elaborate Heists…well not too elaborate Homer is involved…in a bet between two Nuclear Power Plant owners.

As with nearly all events, this event does have a neighbor component to it. A way to be a little social and earn a few extra event currencies along the way. Some of you are a bit confused on the social actions for this event, so let’s break them down for y’all now….

Just a friendly reminder…this is a post ABOUT neighbor actions, not a post to find neighbors. If you’re looking for neighbors add your EA ID to this post…

So with this event there are two different types of actions you can do in your Neighbor’s town…

1. You can tap Justice Agents (3/town). They look like this guy….

2. Send Crooks to Friends Towns. They look like this guy…

Let’s start with Justice Agents, because well they’re the easiest to cover…

Tapping these guys in a friend’s town will award you 5 and 1 . You can tap 3/town in a total of 10 towns. So 30 total taps per day.

And that’s it on the Justice Agents in Friend’s towns…pretty straightforward. Now onto what many of you are confused on….dropping crooks in neighbor’s towns.

We’ve seen this element several times in the past. You have to collect a particular item in order to drop it in a neighbor’s town to earn even more currency. This drop element is separate from the tap element (Justice Agents in this case), so you can drop crooks/criminals in a town multiple times/day and STILL tap the Justice Agents.

So let’s start at the beginning how do you unlock the Crooks to drop…and neighbor Actions in general.

ALL neighbor Actions unlock during part 5 of The Springfield Job. You’ll specifically be tasked with dropping Crooks for Part 5, but it’ll also unlock the ability to tap Justice Agents in a neighbor’s town.

So how do you drop Crooks/Criminals?

By tapping the icon in the top right corner of a neighbor’s town….

I believe you can drop as many as 10 Crooks in a neighbor’s town at one time. As long as you have the crooks to drop.

How Do I Know How Many Crooks/Criminals I have Available to Drop?

In your town you’ll see a counter down in the bottom left above your Cash/Donuts/XP counters…..the third item listed will show you how many crooks you have available to drop

My Counter Is At Zero, How Do I Get More Crooks to Drop?

Crooks will randomly drop when tapping Justice Agents in YOUR OWN SPRINGFIELD. Every so often you’ll see a fall out from tapping the Justice Agents. Those will collect and turn into Crooks to drop. Each represents 1 Crook you can drop.

I Have Crooks To Drop BUT I can’t Drop Them In A Neighbor’s Town, The Icon In the Top Right Doesn’t Appear? But It Appears in Other Springfield….

So if your neighbor is not playing this update, or has not yet downloaded it, you will not be able to drop Crooks in their town. You just won’t see the icon, like the image above shows…the Icon is Simply Missing.

So How Do I Know If A Neighbor Has Started The Update?

A simply way to tell is check their currency counter on the neighbor map view. If the counter for Act 1 sits at 0 they haven’t started it. If it’s over 0 they have.

The Neighbor in Red has NOT started the Event, but the Neighbor in Green Has.

So What Can I Earn from Crooks? What Do My Neighbors Get?

It looks like the Crooks are on a 4hr timer. So if your neighbor finds the Crooks within that 4hr period and taps on it you’ll both earn 2 (for crafting). I have yet to see a Crook give Prize track currency…it may eventually but in several tests I have yet to see it.

You’ll get a report back letting you know which neighbor found the Crook and tapped it…

However, if your friend does NOT tap the Crook in time you’ll still earn 2 but your neighbor will get nothing. It’ll show you no friends helped….

And that’s it my friends! Hopefully, it’ll be pretty straightforward for y’all now….

What are your thoughts on neighbor actions for the Springfield Job? Have you been dropping Crooks for your neighbors? What’s your strategy? Are you going through the process of tapping Justice Agents in Neighbor’s towns? Sound off in the comments below, you know we love hearing from you!

58 responses to “The Springfield Job 101: Act 1 Neighbor Actions”

The ” no one has helped you notification” or has helped you seems useless to me. it’s not an indicator of whether or not i should look for crooks. It never seems to be right for me. Also after clearing agents – I’ll get a pop up message – no more crooks or agents in the town – but clearly this lies. I just cleared all my agents, looked around for crooks and found 6!
The pop up message lies!!!
I don’t mind searching for crooks, but it would be nice to have some indicaiton that i should do so – rather than just have to search constantly (using the move key, and darkening all but people).

It’s quite nice to have neighbour interaction return to the game. It’s more low key than previous events, limited by the number of crooks that we seem to be able to collect, which I’m ok with – but also, I’m going to be running this one close to get all the prizes so I need the boost more so than in other events of late! I’m a fairly infrequent visitor to my neighbours (as they are to me) so it’s nice to see what they’ve been up to.

Neighboreenos – it’s a lil’ boost if you need 30 Justice Agents a Day. It’s also been forever since I’ve last dropped anything into a Neighboreenos Springfield during an Event (the pay off is “meh”, especially for Crafting Currency) – EA can’t make the whole Event too easy, right? 🤔😆

Just wondering about those mask. In a 24hr period I have received 4. So my question is. Why so little mask??
I can’t even do give to each of my friends 😤.
Disappointing……
Anybody else having this issue??

I’ve received 2 in a day and a half, 0 in the last 14 hours. I’m sorry that I can’t reciprocate to neighbors! 😢 I’ll have to trade out my Daily Task, as I’d love to “drop 3 criminals in a friend’s town,” but…👇🏽👎🏽I’m not sure why the drop rate seems so low compared to past events, but mine is not to reason why.

It’s too bad EA keeps putting on the 4hr time limit. As this is an attempt to be a bit more social with doing neighbour interactions, a 4hr window is way too short when the majority of my neighbours are in completely different time zones 😒 I suppose I at least get my 2currency for dropping.

This Amazon pop-up redirect is absolutely ridiculous. This website is the only website that this happens to me on. It’s a shame as this used to be such a good site and a valuable resource for the game.

The issue may keep happening but our content doesnt change. So either I shut the site down, turn off the ads and start charging people to use this site or I wait for a fix. Unfortunately, the wait for a fix option means we all have to be patient and wait.

Oh, Alissa, THANK YOU😍! I’ve been looking all over for an explanation for the nightmare Amazon pop-up ads, and you are the first person I’ve found to explain that it’s *ad* related, rather than a problem with a website or browser. I hope the hijacked ad(s) will be cleaned up soon, as I can’t imagine it’s great for an advertiser to have the ad they pay to place to give a free plug to Mr. Bezos’ behemoth.😳

Also, thanks, as always, to all of you for the lightning-fast info on events – Addicts has been my first stop after an update drop for nigh on 4 years now, and I don’t say “Thanks” near enough.💗

Honestly it was just fully broken down for me. I was previously told by wordpress it was device specific. Now they’re finally coming around to saying it’s not device specific it’s ad specific.
Just puts me in a crummy situation because in hate that you guys have it happen

Also, if you have “notifications” turned on, you will get a message posted on your screen (when you are out of the game) telling you “you have been robbed by (insert tappers name here)”… so you know there is a crook in your town and who left it.

FWIW I’ve seen my available crook counter go up when tapping on Justice agents in *other* people’s Springfields… in fact that’s what I thought triggered it until reading here; I’ll watch more closely in my own from now on as well.

Same here – the first one I noticed seemed to happen in an ‘other’ Springfield. Actually I did not notice the counter go up but did see the little mask while I was trying to count the rewards (before this post went up). Anyone else confirm?

I’ve gotten masks from tapping in both my Springfield and neighbors. Totally random, so it’s not every X amount of taps and you get one. Just know once you pass the 30 tap limit you still get friend points but will not be eligible to get masks.

All of the returning items already have a SIB post if you search the site … there is a handy search box … went through them all earlier to see whats worth it and whats not … on the fence about the mystery box, as I am trying to collect characters right now, so I think my Bonuts will be going to the character combos with rebates first

Just an FYI for anyone who needs a game rolled back. Nothing to do with current update! Been waiting for over 72 hours for them to roll back my game.

No luck called EA again today and apparently I’m still in the queue pending evaluation. I can only assume they have a huge back log of players ahead of me. If anybody’s in the same boat looks like it may take while.

Weird though if this was Christmas event I’d be incredibly annoyed. However actually enjoying time off from this grind. What’s that say lol.

I noticed those crooks seem to pop up in few ‘familiar’ area. Meaning once you arrest the crook, focus on this area on lane. Seems 3 familiar spots to keep an eye out for those sneaky crooks so far whenever I’m on to collect taxes & salaries. Sometimes they just stand really still making it a bit challenge.

It is strange, but I have only received nine crooks since this event began. I had five that I sent to friends’ towns. Now, I have only found four more over the last 24 hours. I guess that we only find a few.

Usually, in these events, there is a button in one of the prize tracks to help us locate all of the non-player characters to clear them to get their drops. In this case, it’s the Justice Agents. I have no way of knowing if I hit them all unless I just get lucky. I wonder what changed or if this is a mistake.

There is a little black banner at the top of the screen that pops up when you have currently cleared your town. If you’re having problems finding them you can press the X icon in the lower right, click the icons in the pop-up window to make everything but the people translucent, search around by the mountains and in tightly grouped buildings. You need to remember where they are and return to normal view to ‘tap’ them.

Also, several times when I’ve tried it and not found anything, when I gave up and returned to normal view I found the last guy outside the museum…
Don’t know if this is normal or not, only been playing for a month.

I agree. In fact, I’m not even sure if I have a glitch that isn’t giving me ANY crooks to drop in my neighbours’ towns. I’m a consistent player, and in the last 24 hours (at least, possibly longer), I’ve had NONE added, making it impossible for me to drop any crooks at my neighbours. Tapping agents in my town, neighbours’, completing the quests, etc, nothing works. And, despite getting notifications that certain neighbours have dropped crooks in my town, I don’t find them at all. Exasperating